


From the Flames, A Flower

by tellius_appreciation



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Crimson Flower compliant, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Found Family, Gen, Psychological Trauma, crimson flower canonical deaths, implied Ferdibert - Freeform, like literally two sentences that have vague implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26455144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellius_appreciation/pseuds/tellius_appreciation
Summary: Edelgard von Hresvelg once had ten siblings. Ten. She has trouble remembering their voices, faces, even their names on occasion. She wishes she could keep them in her mind, but they slip from her grasp, stripped away with the same insistence that took them from her in the first place.-Edelgard has been broken down and build back up again, to the point where she isn't sure she's the same person anymore. With the pile of bodies behind her steadily growing and a war started in her name, she only hopes that she can fulfill her dream...and maybe find a family along the way, if she's lucky.-Welcome to my Edelgard character study and comfort piece, including lovebombing the B!Eagles, dealing with trauma, and a lot of introspection.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	From the Flames, A Flower

**Author's Note:**

> before starting, please read some trigger warnings!!:  
> brief mentions of torture and descriptions of violence, death, and gross dungeon stuff. All pretty vague, but I wanna be safe.  
> This whole fic deals with Edelgard's canonical trauma, including extreme guilt and memory loss. If that's something fresh/sensitive for you, I'd steer clear of this one.  
> And finally: this is Crimson Flower compliant, so that means all CF canon deaths (AKA the forced ones) apply here.  
> -  
> Anyway, with all that out of the way, welcome to the comfort fic where I explore Edelgard's trauma, especially her trauma-induced memory loss, and her overall mindscape. I found myself wishing 3h explored her trauma more, since it is pretty acute, and the game spends a long time delving into trauma/mental health with other characters. Edie's trauma reminds me of my own in some ways, especially the memory loss and disconnect she seems to have between her pre and post trauma selves. My memory loss isn't nearly as profound as hers, but I did put a lot of my feelings and experiences into Edie here, while also drawing off of canon, so this fic was mostly written as comfort to me, while also being an interesting character study. Also there's a lot of Black Eagles lovebombing here because I adore each and every one of them and so does Edelgard, and I also wanted to explore their contributions to Edelgard's mindscape.   
> Enjoy!

❃

Edelgard von Hresvelg once had ten siblings. Ten. She has trouble remembering their voices, faces, even their names on occasion. She wishes she could keep them in her mind, but they slip from her grasp, stripped away with the same insistence that took them from her in the first place.

Her childhood with them was uneventful. She was never particularly close to anyone; she doesn’t remember her mother, doesn’t know whether she’s dead or alive, whether she mothered her other siblings or not, or who she was. Her father never responded to questions about her, and Edelgard hated to bother him as well.

She did love her siblings though, still does, even with them long gone and leaving a hole gaping in her heart. She did love them, younger and older, and they loved her in turn.

At least, she likes to think they did. She can’t remember anything to the contrary, but then again, she can’t remember much from _before_.

She remembers the other children who came to visit- Vestra, Aegir, Bergliez, Hevring, Varley. Some of the gaps are filled by others’ memories, which she passes off as her own. Other details she does remember, however. Of course, the shadowy Vestra boy, the _extraordinarily_ noble heir to house Aegir, the younger Bergliez, who was too loud and got far too many cuts and scrapes, even for a child, the lazy Hevring who spent entire days napping, the reclusive Varley with a strange penchant for macabre plants. She has faint memories of a Vestra girl- Hubert’s sister, who he has never mentioned directly since she and his mother disappeared one day, never to be mentioned again. Ferdinand’s four sisters, all either married off or simply…gone, by now, without a trace. Caspar’s older brother, who he hasn’t talked to in years, now.

Perhaps there were more lost, ones that she doesn’t remember at all.

❃

No one was particularly close to her, according to her memories, at least not until Hubert von Vestra chose to stay by her side.

To this day, she knows not why he picked her over the others- she had older, more distinguished siblings, but he chose her. She wonders, did he sense that she would be the one to live? Or did she live because of him? Or had it been mere coincidence, a flip of a coin that determined his lifelong devotion to her?

She worries, sometimes, that she deprived him of things. Of his childhood, his free will, his emotions, his _life_.

Did _she_ take it from him?

❃

She has glimpses, an objective knowledge of what happened in her childhood, the good and the horrendous, but it all feels distant, like it happened to someone else.

She still knows, of course. She could never forget her siblings. The hole they left in her heart, the wretched screams and cries and squelches, the unforgiving cold of those dark dungeons, the black, black masks and robes, the chains tight around her wrists, forcing her to watch, to hear, to smell.

There are still images- rotting flesh, piles of corpses, those black masks again. Rats, scurrying over it all, tearing into flesh, never ending squeaks and grunts, the crunch of bone and the bite of metal digging into her wrists. Her sister contorted in pain. Her brother going deathly still and never moving again. The cries of the youngest, before they stopped all too suddenly.

Then it’s her, only her, left alone atop a pile of siblings.

Her hair turns white. She wonders if she’s even the same person anymore.

She’s released, then, after the black masks get what they want. She’s too dazed and confused and terrified to understand what’s happening, but she knows that she is now Edelgard von Hresvelg, white-haired, the sole heir to the Adrestian Emperor. The perfectly designed Emperor, possessing two powerful crests, able to construct the ideal Adrestian Empire. That is her duty.

Though the nobles who put her in there intend to use her for their own bidding, to have her uphold their own power, she has no intention of letting them do so.

She decides that she must change the world. If she doesn’t, no one will.

❃

She went to Fhirdiad, before the dungeons, before the black masks, before her siblings were gone. She has no memory of the trip, not a glimpse, not a glimmer. An entire swath of her life forgotten along with the horrors of those dungeons.

Evidently, she was there for a while. But nothing brings the memory back, not even Hubert telling her detailed accounts of her trip there, his failed attempts to reach her, her return as an only child, as the new Edelgard von Hresvelg.

Something about the Blaiddyd heir bothers her, while she’s at the Officer’s Academy. She can tell, a prickling at the edge of her mind, that something about him is important to her past. But those memories are lost forever, and she has more important things to worry about, so she pays him no mind, even when he turns his eyes on her and stares into her soul and makes comments about how he doesn’t remember her hair being white ‘before’.

_Before?_

That pull from her past grows louder, an ocean rushing in her ears as she stands in front of him, a fallen King soaked in rain and dirt and blood, staring up at her with pleading blue eyes.

A spark. She did know him, before. She did. He—

“El…” he murmurs.

She brings Aymr down, slicing through his neck.

It doesn’t matter, not anymore. That Edelgard he called for is gone. She died a long time ago, with her brown hair, with her childhood, with the rest of her siblings in those dark dungeons.

Yet another brother, lost, pulling at her mind from the fractured fragments of her past.

❃

But.

Despite all she has done, despite all the lives she has destroyed, ruined, despite her coldness, the distance she tries to put between herself and the rest of the world, they still choose her. Her teacher, her classmates. They stand by her side, even knowing how she betrayed them, lied to them, hurt them, used them.

They still believe in her.

Maybe, just maybe, with them at her side, she can change the world. Maybe she won’t be just another wasted life, topping the pile of bodies that collect in her wake.

Suddenly, it’s no longer her and Hubert against the world. Suddenly, there are people who have a choice, who can leave her side, and have every reason to, but against all odds, they choose her. They open themselves up, give themselves over to her.

They trust her.

So maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t hurt to trust them, too.

❃

And so it begins. She goes from thinking of her classmates as pawns to be moved on her chessboard, things to be used as long as they were in her arsenal but never relied on too heavily, to people who she can trust and love, give herself over to in just the same way they’ve given themselves to her.

She grows to love them. To know them now, instead of through her broken childhood memories and surface level interactions at the Academy.

She loves Hubert, first and foremost, the one who chose her long before anyone else ever had. She loves the smell of coffee that lingers on him, his presence always near, his stilted way of speaking that attempts to mask affection as simple pragmatism. She loves that he might just be growing to care for others; she can see it in his soft blushes and startled expressions, in protective touches and his unwavering gaze, gifts of tea given for no logical reason, the little crocheted flower he keeps pinned to his coat.

She loves Ferdinand, who she always thought of as frivolous and shallow, who seemed so wedded to his idea of nobility that she always thought he would be her opponent. Yet, here he is, willing to throw his life away for her vision. She loves his earnest words, his sincerity to himself and open care for others, always willing to fiercely debate with her and Hubert about their plans. She loves his openness, his impeccable taste in tea, his ramblings about operas and horse breeds and all kinds of other nonsense, his ability to bring out the passion in others.

She loves Dorothea’s bright, clear radiance, her bouncing curls and wide eyes, her sensitivity and emotional insight, her loving touches, her giggles, cries, laments, her lilting voice and teasing tugs, her silly, but sometimes haunting songs. The fact that despite how hard this war is for her, she sticks with it, sticks with them, because she trusts them. Maybe even loves them.

She loves Linhardt, though his insistence on lazing about drives her to constantly nag at him ‘like a mother’, as he tells her. Still, she loves his boundless intelligence, his blatant honesty. His ideas well-thought out and enlightening, and when she does find him in a mood to discuss work, his research is fascinating, his mind bright.

She loves Petra, raw determination and pride, loves the little mishaps she still makes with Fódlan’s language, her dedication to improving every step along the way, the passion she holds for her culture, her home, the tattoos she shows proudly, the braids she knows by heart, her wild yet carefully controlled expertise in battle.

She loves Caspar, his battle cries which, despite Hubert’s constant warnings, remain as loud and demanding as ever, his extreme work out regimes, his poor manners that are somehow consistently endearing, his raw strength and energy, his never-ending ability to keep going, keep pushing, keep helping however he can.

She loves Bernadetta’s shrieks and yelps, her meek demeanor and her stuffy little room, loves when she’s out and about, for once, smiling just a little at the other’s antics and huddling close. She loves the little gifts that show up on the strike force’s doorsteps: bouquets, embroidered handkerchiefs, rare plants, usually equipped with thorns, spikes, or teeth of some kind.

She loves them all, so, so much…far more than she thought this new Edelgard von Hresvelg was capable of.

She didn’t know that this new Edelgard was capable of loving at all. But here she is.

Here she is.

❃

And her vision, her dream- it comes to pass. A unified Fódlan, under her own banner. Faerghus and Leicester, crushed under her boot, under one rule. Adrestia’s nobility, corrupt and festering scourges on the continent, crumbled into dust. The Archbishop of that dreaded church—filled with lies and deceit and ignorance—is defeated, vanquished from the world after far too long. Crests, the cause of so much suffering, so much hatred, so much pain, are suddenly meaningless.

The pile of corpses behind her grows. She doesn’t look back. The only way to go is forward.

❃

They reconvene at the monastery, one last time, packing up and preparing to make their triumphant return to Enbarr. After the strike force finishes packing up their belongings, they all head down to the fishing pond to do…something. None of them seem to be too sure what, but it doesn’t matter. No one is ready to leave yet.

Edelgard resolves to meet them there, but goes on a walk around the monastery first, making sure everything is in order.

She’s not sure what will become of Garreg Mach in her new world. The crumbling cathedral at the end of the far bridge has little use in a world without the Church of Seiros, but the rest of the facilities could prove useful. Perhaps the Officer’s Academy could reopen, at some point, without the foreboding presence of the Archbishop, without the harsh dividing lines between Faerghus, Leicester, Adrestia. To train students for life in this new world- not war, but peace. A way to bring people together, erase the line of noble and commoner, Empire, Kingdom, or Alliance.

Her work is far from over: this war was only the beginning. Perhaps even the easiest part. She and Hubert are already preparing for assaults on Those Who Slither in the Dark, finally ready to dispose of them now that their power has exceeded its usefulness. Even aboveground, out of secrecy and shadows, there is a mountain of work piling up. Ferdinand is organizing reconstruction efforts and aid for the war-ravaged Kingdom and Alliance territories, Petra’s officially drafting their plan for Brigid’s full independence, Byleth’s negotiating peace and mutually beneficial trade with the crafty Almyran King, and countless missives already pouring in of surviving nobles begging for mercy from their new Emperor. There are entire swaths of land that require a system of governance before they fall into complete disarray. And after that there’s reforms- public education, fair legislation, open borders, reparations. She now has a whole continent to watch over.

That, however, can wait, if only for a little while.

She has certain people she needs to see first.

As she approaches the fishing pond, Ferdinand and Dorothea are singing some jolly tune together, probably from some opera, dipping their toes in the water. Petra’s convinced that she should take a swim in the pond, and Caspar is about to join her when Linhardt says something that reels them both back to reality, and they concede to sitting calmly on the edge of the pond, and getting wrapped up in conversation about fish, of all things. Hubert stands behind them, leaning against the wall of the greenhouse. He’s smiling, in a way that Edelgard has never seen before, full of love and devotion, different from his usual gaze that is reserved for her, as Emperor.

He sees her approaching and arches an eyebrow at her—heavens know what that means—and moves to sit next to Ferdinand and Dorothea, joining in on the conversation and dalliance with an ease she hasn’t seen him possess in a long time. Possibly ever. Ferdinand even manages to convince him to slip off his boots and join them all in dipping their toes in the water (though she’s fairly certain Ferdinand could convince Hubert of most anything at this point, if Hubert’s uncharacteristic soft blush every time they are together is any indication).

She’s proud of him. Of all of them.

He doesn’t know it yet, but she believes that maybe, just maybe, he is the brother she can gain to make up, if only a tiny bit, for the many she’s lost.

Maybe someday, he’ll call her El, too.

A flash of purple from the greenhouse helps her find the last member of the strike force—Bernadetta is tending to the plants, a soft smile on her face, humming an echo of Dorothea and Ferdinand’s tune.

This new Edelgard, who she is now, would be a husk of a woman without them. A woman driven insane by the ghosts of her past, intent on changing the world in some way, no matter how low she had to stoop in order to do so. Now, though she still carries a pile of bodies on her back, shattered memories and lifetimes of suffering due to her own decisions, but she thinks—no, hopes—that she can change this world for the better, make up for the suffering she’s caused with a world absent of war, hatred, ignorance. A world where good deeds are rewarded and wicked deeds are justly dealt with. Where one’s birth determines nothing except the start, where everyone is treated as equals and may rise and fall on their own value and merits. Where someone’s rule can be terminated the moment they stoop to debauchery and self-grandeur.

It’s them who made her this way, made her consider their stories, their values, who made her dream possible. No longer just the desperate cry of one damaged girl, but the combined efforts of a group who love each other, fully and completely, regardless of their start, regardless of where they are now, regardless of what came in between. That is the love they aim to spread, as well as they can, to as many people as they can.

She looks over the plants in the greenhouse, lush green, crimson, deep blue, violet…beautiful.

Edelgard wish she knew something about flowers. They’re lovely, but the names and meanings and colors are far too complicated, and she’s been far too preoccupied by her tumultuous life and never-ending goals. 

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to learn, a little. For the sake of her…classmates…friends…

No…her _family_.

Because that’s what they’ve become to her, despite all the splashing and squawking from the pond and resulting shouts that imply that someone may have fallen in, despite all their loud personalities, despite the pull of her past tugging on her back. Here they are, a family found in the middle of a war with a group she hardly looked twice at when she first met them. Now, they’ve filled the aching hole in her heart, in some strange new way. They’ve helped her find herself, fully and completely after she thought she was lost forever.

She needs some way to show them.

“Bernadetta,” she begins, proud of the way the girl no longer shrinks away at the mere sight of Edelgard addressing her, “would you help me make a bouquet?”

❃

Edelgard von Hresvelg, Emperor of Adrestia, was born and raised in flames.

But from those flames, wild and destructive and violent, came a passion, a drive, a dream.

From the remains of those flames, the ash and rubble left behind, a flower bloomed.

That flower took root in her heart, encompassed it entirely.

That flower…no, perhaps there were several flowers. For she was no longer alone. Perhaps she had never truly been alone.

Those flowers…they made her feel whole once more.

She only hopes that she can help Fódlan, a country ravaged by fierce flames, burned into ash…she hopes that she, together with her family, can grow far more flowers out of the flames.

❃

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my first foray into writing serious 3h work, like stuff that I'm not just writing for practice or a random thought, and I'm very happy with how it turned out, it definitely served its purpose to me. If you found enjoyment out of it too, and you have the time, I'd really love it if you dropped a comment- it doesn't have to be anything special to make my day, I appreciate every single one I get!  
> This probably won't be my last foray into writing Black Eagles, or maybe even another house, but no definite plans yet. If you are a Tellius fan though, I am planning some projects for that!  
> Once again, thank you so much for reading, and as the Black Eagles say, be gay do crime ;)


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